The scanners are already being tested at Boston Logan airport and Phoenix Sky Harbor

Published Dec 21, 2017 at 8:12 PM

Receive the latest national-international updates in your inbox

Passengers at O'Hare International Airport wait in line to be screened at a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint on May 16, 2016, in Chicago, Illinois.

As traveler traffic at airports soars for the holidays, the Transportation Security Administration is looking into new high-tech scanners that will be able to digitally unpack carry-on bags, giving a detailed 3-D image of what's inside, NBC News reported.

To the everyday traveler, the device looks like the typical 2-D scanner now common at airports world-wide. But the new machines are a smaller version of the type of CT or CAT scanners common in medical offices and hospitals — and are able to slice through a digital image, allowing the operator to manipulate to peer beneath clutter like shoes, laptops, and books.

The scanners are already being tested at Boston Logan airport and Phoenix Sky Harbor. In 2018, they’ll be introduced at New York’s JFK Airport and Chicago O’Hare.

More than 107 million Americans were expected to travel by planes, trains or automobiles, beginning on Saturday Dec. 23 through Monday Jan. 1, according to travel company AAA. That would make this year the highest year-end travel volume on record, and a 3.1 percent increase from travel last year.